A San Bernardino native’s newest film is set to make its U.S. premiere at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, which begins tonight with a black-tie awards gala.

“Chamaco,” which is Spanish for “the kid,” features San Bernardino High School graduate Kirk Kuykendall, who uses the stage name Kirk Harris.

“It’s a film that we really wanted to make,” Kuykendall said. “It took a good couple years to put the financing together. We went down and shot it in Mexico City. It was quite an experience to be down there during the filming.”

Shot with a $2 million budget, the film co-stars Hollywood veterans Martin Sheen and Michael Madsen. Sheen plays the father of Kuykendall’s character, an American doctor who leaves his home in the U.S. to run a medical clinic in Mexico City. Madsen plays the former trainer of Kuykendall’s character.

“They’re both really great guys,” Kuykendall said.

Kuykendall portrays Jimmy Irwin, a former U.S. Olympic boxer who joins his estranged father in Mexico City to mentor and train poverty-stricken Abner, a teenager with aspirations to become a prizefighter.

Kuykendall, who grew up in San Bernardino neighborhoods around 40th Street and in the city’s Westside, said Mexico City and San Bernardino share some similarities.

“It has its nice areas and its rough areas,” he said. “There’s some poverty, and then the opposite of that.”

Kuykendall co-produced and co-wrote the film. When growing up as a teenager in San Bernardino, his interests were focused on athletics and one day writing the “great American novel.”

He didn’t become interested in film until being exposed to method acting as a 19-year-old.

“It’s about just getting out and being that character in society for a while until you become so comfortable with it that you live out that part when you’re shooting the film,” he said.

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